Ed who?, you may very well ask, just like I did. Planet Mu doesn't reveal much more than that Lawes is a 'Birmingham-based musician & contemporary composer' and 'he divides the works between 'pieces' (generally scored for or improvised on more traditional instruments) and 'tracks' (which can be generalised as more computer-based or electroacoustic works)'. The pieces include studies for violin, double bass & tenor saxophone and mixed ensembles. All that is performed with this, is later in the studio being edited down by Lawes into 'pieces' and 'tracks' (I'd say a 'track' by his definition is a 'piece' too). Despite being on Planet Mu this is not really a work of dance, rhythm, techno or anything some such, even despite the press blurb mentioning Autechre. It also mentions Ligeti, Stockhausen and Anthony Braxton, and that is more like it. Lawes plays in his fourteen pieces modern classical music, sometimes, such as in 'Tone' a bit jazz-influenced, but most of the time, in a serious serial way of Ligeti, or with slow movements such as Morton Feldmann. As much as I played this CD with interest, and no matter how hard I tried to like it, I found that the music was a bit alien and remote. It didn't grab me as much as some modern classical can do. It wasn't unpleasent to hear, but maybe too distant like. And I certainly didn't see the difference in 'Pieces' and 'Tracks'... (FdW)